rarified wrote:Maybe one more thing that needs doing is continuously looking at where things are happening and trying to nudge divergent but redundant groups to work together.

Agreed, but... are the groups prepared to be nudged at the moment? This might happen a little further down the road, as things become clearer and the extent of the work becomes apparent. It's also a matter of trust and (dare I say it?) politics. I would really like to keep politics out of this forum if at all possible.

In the meantime, it might help to have a thread where individuals can post links to relevant discussions on other forums, to save the rest of us time in trawling through them all.

Grogyan wrote:Should really have a separate thread for organizing just these two points, if we are to have any hope to return to the cavern once again

Braggi wrote:1. Regarding a test server:a) We need it.b) It will have to paid for, no doubt.c) I'm willing to help, by paying within my means.d) Regarding organization - what about politely quizzing the community of Freespace 2 (or one of the other legacy gaming communities running their own servers) to see if they have ever had to tackle the "who manages the money" issue? (Don't know if that is useful, but it might not hurt to check. I'd even volunteer as go-between, if it would help - I'm fairly comfortable with modding communities after my experience with revitalizing a decent-sized mod for Oblivion.)

Braggi, if you could check d) out, it would be useful information to know.

Grogyan mentioned payment issues in the discussions on the OpenUru.org site so the info would feed in there as well.

I have the time and the desire, so I am on it. My wife is away for the holidays, giving me some "bachelor time" to devote to this.

Hopefully I can track down some of the server admins and get replies in the next week or two.

There is some duplication but there are also some items there I do not see here.

The financial and legal liabilities listed there will be a major issue if the servers do not scale to something that can be run on a home server and connection. Once we collect money to fund a 'group' supported server, donations or fees, we have a whole other set of issues to handle.

My thoughts at the moment are that we need to keep separate the discussion on the technical aspects from the legal and financial ramifications -- different skill sets of expertise and knowledge are required. The focus of this particular subforum is on the technical.

However, would it be worth setting up an area on OpenUru where the legal and financial aspects of Open Source Uru can be discussed? Perhaps it would be as well to discuss this initially in the Suggestions part of the forum.

Note: I've updated the list in initial post with Grogyan's stage 0.5, and added links to discussion threads for stages 0.5 and 1.

Dot wrote:My thoughts at the moment are that we need to keep separate the discussion on the technical aspects from the legal and financial ramifications -- different skill sets of expertise and knowledge are required. The focus of this particular subforum is on the technical.

I agree. While we need to explore the possible financial costs of leasing servers as part of the technical discussion, the issues of how funds are raised, the legal resposibilities for running servers, etc., needs to be discussed separately. Maybe we should start new threads for specifically those subjects. I see some particular issues arising over paying for servers, but I couldn't make any informed comment on most legal matters.

Almost two months since the start of this topic. How time flys by
when I didn't have time to wait.

The next incarnation of our project at work released.

Survived the January layoff binge.

I was thinking this morning... are we as ready now as we can be?
Should we go through our outline, see what has been done and accomplished,
and if we know any more about refining the outline?

I'm sensing from the lack of traffic and the posts that I have been reading
that the Community is in a low point in mood. I'm concerned that all the pent-up energy
(if any is left) will be expended in a disorganized riot when something becomes
available.

I've also been wondering what the absence of posts was really indicating. I guess there was the initial enthusiasm, with lots of ideas being published and debated, but with no particular place to go until Cyan make a move, that has rather faded off. I don't know that it's a sign of a "low mood", rather that there's simply not much more we can do right now. The "System Concepts" forum has, so far, served to pose and develop the kinds of questions we most urgently need to answer. Now we need Cyan to at least give us some information, if not some code: For example, some of the system documentation - the critical server requirements, architectural details, build requirements and procedures. That would at least allow people to make sure they are planning all the right resources and tools.

You're right - I guess the fans are a bit like a coiled spring right now. If Cyan release any kind of "big lump" of material to the fan base now, it be a frenzy of diverging individualistic activity that will ultimately not move things much further forward I know Cyan (and friends) are putting a lot of voluntary effort into getting things ready, so I shouldn't criticise too much, but I can't help feeling that they'd have made things easier for everyone by "drip feeding" bits of usable info over the weeks since the initial OS announcement.

I think it would be nice if we had enough information to begin further planning, but that may not be Cyan's priority right now.

It is my guess that Cyan - more specifically, Chogon - is handling things like this:
* Myst for iPhone takes priority
* Working on Open Source Myst Online in spare time
* Focusing on the technical and legal details of OSMO first, further planning comes second

That is just my guess... I'd cross-post to something I wrote over at the GoMe about the current situation, and what we might do about it, but our site seems to be down. Have to get back to it later.

Edit Ah, it's back. Here we go: From discussion about a potential All Guilds meeting:

Marten wrote:Back on topic: All-Guilds meeting.

I think maybe it would be worthwhile for someone to gently nudge Cyan to see if they're more interested in solving the technical issues to the open source release, or if they could spend a little more time FIRST discussing their plans for security, canon-approval (if it is possible), and the such, even if such planning slows down the release of Open Source Myst Online. I'm concerned we're currently on a linear track where the community cannot do anything (we cannot make any plans) without guidance, and that if we had a little more information, maybe we could plan in parallel while Cyan continues working on the Open Source project. (I understand completely if the effort Cyan is putting into this is almost entirely off-work time, because during business hours I expect they are working on Myst for iPhone and on shopping proposals for new projects to other companies.)

An alternative, if Cyan is simply too busy and cannot offer any planning information at this time, is to encourage JWPlatt, Jamey, and others to resume the initiative they'd begun before the Open Source announcement, and craft an example plan that the community might follow. This could then be submitted to Cyan for comment, in the hope that we can get the ball rolling and encourage the community to come together.